Larry Goldberg, Founder and President of Storage Village opened his first Storage Village location in Landover, Maryland in 1988 with the commitment to provide customers with premium self-storage services and - to give back to the community.

Twenty years later, Larry shares with other small business leaders the strategy, planning process and metrics he has used to establish and sustain a successful community giving program including how to create clear standards, verification processes and measure the effectiveness of small business philanthropy efforts.

How can you and your small business give back? Larry suggests the following:

• Consider discounting services and products — for local non-profits like churches, women’s shelters, school teams, etc. Assist those that are assisting others.

• Get your employees — involved through local community service and volunteer assistance. Consider donating 8 hours of your employees time per month to a community service. Instead of paying them to come into the office, one day a month, pay them to assist others through volunteer work at another location that day. Doing so increases employee morale, sales and builds trust and visibility within your community.

• How do you decide — who to help? Start by picking something of personal importance to you and make sure you are working with a well organized non-profit organization. If your have a personal interest or passion in the cause, you will be much more focused on assisting them.

• Raise public awareness — by using yard signs, posting on local area community boards and cyber boards, advertise your program on your partnering non-profit organization’s web site and make use local television, news and radio.

The benefits of a community giving program for small business can be endless and the impact to both the community and your bottom line can be huge. And it can be done - even on a shoestring.

Start simple and build the program from the ground up. The positive energy will be infectious and increase employee moral, increase sales, build community awareness and visibility for your company and most importantly, watch your business and efforts earn the respect and trust of your community.

Learn more about community giving programs by listening to Larry’s full interview by clicking the red and yellow player below now.

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 Building A Successful Business Community Giving Program [27:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (443)

Posted by Staci Wood | | Permalink

1. Yes. I believe it’s very important to instill social awareness to your employees. It will surely allow them to grow with moral values in the company.

   Comment by Mary Grace Ignacio — 12/4/2008 @ 6:43 am

2. I agree to the need of promoting social awareness to employees however it’s quite hard to do. In my case, I wasn’t able to feel that initiative to the company where I used to work with. But what do you think is the best thing to do that can relay to the employees how important moral values is?

   Comment by Arthur Bland — 12/5/2008 @ 2:40 am

3. This interview provides some really great insight on implementing giving programs. Larry makes a good point to pick a cause that is near and dear to your heart. If you have a great passion for the cause you are helping, that will not only motivate you and your employees but will give you a greater sense of purpose. What a nice feeling it would be to be able to give back to your community in a selfless way.

   Comment by Amanda — 12/5/2008 @ 10:43 am

4. Yes. I agree with you Amanda. Really great insights however I wish the voice quality or I mean the sound quality is a bit clearer.

   Comment by Arthur Bland — 12/9/2008 @ 12:30 am

5. Picking a cause that is near and dear to our hearts is really important and I believe it as really a determining factor for success. We have to have that passion to do it so that we will become effective to it.

   Comment by Bianca Aquino — 12/14/2008 @ 9:58 pm